


Crocodiles, Revisited

by cridecoeur



Series: Meaning and Depth [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-28
Updated: 2012-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-30 05:48:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cridecoeur/pseuds/cridecoeur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Absolutely not,” Nicholas said, mere moments after stepping into - God help him - the <i>fifth</i> apartment of the last three days. Peter was looking across the room at the wall painted with a mural of what looked like something out of a particularly disturbing  Tetsuya Ishada painting, the one with the dead crocodiles and the infant, perhaps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crocodiles, Revisited

**Author's Note:**

> I keep forgetting about these, but Amanda reminded me about them, and now I am going to finish posting them. So I guess you can blame her if you don't like them. This one is probably my least favorite in the series, possibly because it involves apartment shopping, the thought of which still gives me PTSD flashbacks to Austin and like the Land of Cockroaches and Wasps. Also, all of the apartments features in this fic actually exist. Unfortunately. I have been in them. Although some were actually houses, which really just made it worse.

Nicholas was fairly certain shopping for his last apartment had not been so _utterly horrific_. Perhaps he had simply been possessed of lower standards, at the time, being that a starving medical student had little in the way of options and much in the way of loans to pay off, and so, a slender amount left for such mundane things as paying rent or buying food. Or, perhaps, apartments really had just become that much more terrifying in the time that had passed.

“Absolutely not,” Nicholas said, mere moments after stepping into - God help him - the _fifth_ apartment of the last three days. Peter was looking across the room at the wall painted with a mural of what looked like something out of a particularly disturbing Tetsuya Ishada painting, the one with the dead crocodiles and the infant, perhaps.

“I guess it’s kind of, um,” Peter said, and then turned wide eyes on Nicholas, as if hoping he would be able to complete the sentence for him.

“Unsettling,” Nicholas said, which was the least offensive way he could think to put it, and suddenly, Peter was grinning at him, and Nicholas found himself grinning back, reflexively.

“But like,” Peter said, “maybe Tess wouldn’t come over as much.”

“Tess would probably love it.” Nicholas said.

Peter seemed to consider this for a moment. “Yeah, maybe,” he said. He paused, and then his smile, suddenly, widened. “Maybe we should tell her and Claudia about it.”

“I thought you _liked_ Claudia,” Nicholas said.

“I do,” Peter said, “but she totally bought me a _vacuum_ for my birthday.”

“Well,” Nicholas said, “there is that.”

Behind them, the realtor - whose abilities Nicholas was beginning to question - cleared her throat. “So that’s a no, then?” she asked. Nicholas blinked at her, having half forgotten she was there. The other half of him could not believe she would ask such a simpleton’s question.

“Yeah, we’re looking for something a little less,” Peter said, and then looked to Nicholas, again, for help.

“Completely horrifying,” Nicholas said. Peter giggled.

“… Right,” the realtor said - Sophie, Nicholas reminded himself, whose seeming ineptitude at this particular task likely stemmed from the fact that she was merely moon-lighting as a realtor; he true calling was radio broadcast. “I’ll see what I can do.”

#

“You know,” Peter said, on the drive home, “We could always just stay where we are. It’s not _that_ bad.”

“Peter, we were _robbed_ ,” Nicholas said.

“But they didn’t take that much!” Peter said.

“This time,” Nicholas said. “And what happens next time when one of us is _home_?”

Peter stared out the window, biting his lip, then sighed and looked back at Nicholas. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “It’s pretty bad.”

“Thank you,” Nicholas said.

“This just totally sucks,” Peter said, slumping down in his seat, head tipped back, arms spread out, palms up as if he was supplicating the heavens. Granted if the apartments they were viewing continued along the same line of the ones they had already seen, a little divine intervention might not be remiss.

“Think of it like this,” Nicholas said. “Things can hardly get worse.”

“Oh my gosh, don’t say that, you’re tempting fate,” Peter said. “Things totally will.”

“Alright, then” Nicholas said, with a small smile, “things are _undoubtedly_ going to get worse.”

“Oh my gosh,” Peter said, “that’s just as bad, shut up. Don’t say anything.”

“Which you would hate.” Nicholas said. “You wouldn’t stand for the silence.”

“I can fill it up myself, _duh_ ,” Peter said, and Nicholas laughed.

#

After the _Crocodile Apartment_ , as Nicholas had taken to referring to it, the quality of apartment’s… well, Nicholas was frankly aghast that someone at some time chose to live in them, in their current state of - Nicholas could not even call it decoration. They looked more _defaced_ than anything else.

“Is that, um,” Peter said, staring up wide eyed at the buffalo head mounted none too subtly in the master bedroom.

“A buffalo,” Nicholas said. “Well, part of a buffalo.”

“That’s, um,” Peter said, then turned to Nicholas with wide eyes, seemingly lost for words.

“Utterly tasteless,” Nicholas finished for him. 

“Yeah,” Peter said, looking back at the mounted head, “But, like, we wouldn’t have to keep it, so.”

“Actually,” Sophie said, preemptively wincing, which could not mean anything positive, “It’s permanently attached. It belongs to the building owner. He’s a, uh, hunting enthusiast.”

Nicholas and Peter both stared at the beheaded bison. “Well, then,” Nicholas said.

“Not so much?” Sophie said.

“No,” Nicholas said, “I think not.”

#

In the next apartment, Nicholas did not even make it past the door before freezing in place. Peter actually ran into him from behind, he had stopped so abruptly. 

“Good God,” Nicholas said, and Peter peered over his shoulder and got as far as, “What are you - “ before he cut himself off with an, “Oh my gosh.”

The apartment was… pink. Not simply the walls, which could have been repainted. The carpet, too, was pink, and the curtains. When Nicholas walked into the kitchen, he found that the countertops and the tile were also pink, a hue he would not have chosen, even if he were enamored of the color, which he was not. He felt as if he’d walked into some sort of Barbie toy house and when he looked outside, a six-year-old with bows in her hair and a frilly dress would be peering in at them.

“… Wow.” Peter said. He was standing in the center of the living room; Nicholas could see him over the horribly pink bar. “This is, um… colorful.”

Even the realtor did not seem to know quite what to think. “I haven’t been here before,” she said, as if defending herself. “It wasn’t described to me like… this.” She looked down at her clipboard and then back up. “You don’t want this place,” she said, decisively. “Not unless they halve the rent.”

“Not even then,” Nicholas said, and Peter turned to him, with wide eyes, mouth twitching, as if he were barely suppressing a grin. 

“I’m pretty sure this really _would_ keep Tess away, though,” he said.

“I would rather her bring sex toys over every day,” Nicholas said, forgetting himself, and felt immediately mortified, flushing when Sophie looked at him askance.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat and trying not to look her in the eye, “Perhaps the next one.”

#

“Good lord,” Nicholas said, stopping short, at the doorway of the bedroom in the next apartment.

“What?” Peter said, still coming down the hall. “What is it?”

“Ah,” Nicholas said, but before he could elaborate, Peter was behind him, peering over his shoulder. 

“Oh my gosh,” Peter said, and then he broke down giggling.

“ _Peter_ ,” Nicholas said.

“Oh my gosh,” Peter said, again, “This is like _so_ narcissistic,” which was putting the thing mildly, as far as Nicholas was concerned. The walls were composed _entirely_ of mirrors. Nicholas would never be able to have sex with the lights on, again. Perhaps, even with them _off_ , and he was not enamored of a life of celibacy, particularly when he was living with _Peter_. 

“No?” Sophie said.

“No,” Nicholas said, over Peter’s protestation of, “Oh, come on, it’s _so cool_.”

“I will never have sex with you again,” Nicholas said to him, which just led to Peter pouting at him.

“You are so lame,” he said, and then, stepping into the room fully and regarding his _infinite_ reflections in the walls. “Okay, so maybe not.”

# 

When Nicholas had suggested that perhaps they could enlarge their proverbial apartment-hunting net to complexes further from the city - a location which apparently made owners and even builders go _utterly mad_ \- Peter had agreed more quickly than he had expected, being that Peter loved the city and had always lived at her heart. Perhaps the search had worn on him more than it had originally seemed.

He was unusually quiet in the car as they drove to the next apartment, worrying at his lip with his teeth. Nicholas kept glancing at him, unsettled. A quiet Peter was an unhappy Peter. 

“Are you alright?” Nicholas asked, finally, when the silence had become too much for him, and he found himself thinking in circles about what he could have done to cause it - being that there was no one else with them, Nicholas thought surely the fault must lie with him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Peter said, in the least convincing _I’m-fine_ tone Nicholas had ever heard, from Peter or otherwise. Nicholas gave him a yet more perturbed look. Peter glanced at him and grimaced. “Just, like,” he picked at the loose stitching in his jeans, somewhat distractedly, then blurted out, all at once, “do you want me to move out?”

Nicholas, in shock, nearly rear-ended the car in front of them and had to slam on the brakes to prevent wrecking both cars. He turned to stare at Peter, who was rapidly flushing, looking anywhere but at Nicholas. 

“Peter,” he said, “why on Earth would you think that?”

“You’re, um,” Peter said, and abrupt honking alerted Nicholas to the fact that he was stopped _in the middle of traffic_. He jerked back around to stare at the road, feeling somewhat… he was not entirely sure of what he was feeling at the moment, truth be told.

Peter was quiet for long enough that Nicholas glanced back at him - he was flushing, more deeply, and staring down at his hands in his lap.

“It’s just that, like,” he said, “we’ve looked at a _million_ apartments. And you haven’t wanted any of them. And we already lived together before, so it’s not like you had a choice, but, like, now you do, and I just thought,” by now he was actually _wringing his hands_ , “that maybe you didn’t want to live with me anymore.”

Nicholas stared at him a moment, before Peter started to squirm. “Um, the road…“ he said, just as someone honked, and Nicholas jerked back around.

“Peter,” he said, “I don’t want the apartments we’ve seen because they’re hideous, not because I don’t want to live with you. I love you. Of course I want you there.”

“Oh,” Peter said, and when Nicholas glanced back at him again, he was smiling down at his hands so hard, Nicholas thought it might actually be painful. For a moment, Nicholas couldn’t understand what exactly had put such an exaggerated look upon his face. Then he thought back over what he’d just said, and nearly rear-ended the car in front of him, again. Good God. _I love you_. He’d never said… not that he was going to take it back, not least because it was true, he meant it, and he was not one to shy from truth.

“Okay,” Peter said, sounding happier than Nicholas had ever heard him before. “Um, me too.”

“Well, then,” Nicholas said, then cleared his throat. “That’s settled.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, and when Nicholas glance back over again, he still had the same blinding smile on his face. “I guess so.”

#

As if the universe had simply been waiting for Nicholas’ confession, the next apartment they looked at was, if not perfect, then, at least, well above suitable.

“Oh, wow,” Peter said, standing in the living room, looking out the windows to what was… not a spectacular view if one was more inclined toward the city, but certainly beautiful if one appreciated the natural world. The apartment overlooked an a greenbelt, actually acres of forest between this particular complex and the next. If Nicholas was not mistaken those were _deer_ standing down below the balcony. Being that this was the last building in the complex, on the very edge, there were not even any other apartments to obstruct the view.

Nicholas turned around once, taking in the whole of the apartment or, at least, the whole of the apartment that did not include the bedrooms. The rooms lay on an open floor plan with high ceilings and windows enough to make the interior feel warm and light, spacious. When Nicholas inspected them, they seem well-sealed, not likely to leak cool air in the summer or overtax the heater in the winter by letting in the cold. He turned around once more and walked into the kitchen, which did not have hideously pink counters, but a sort of modern steel affair, backed with black tiles, which would certainly be easier to clean and did not leave him despairing of the tastes of the general public.

“Nicholas, come look at this!” Peter called from the hall that led away from the living room, into the master bedroom. Nicholas left the kitchen, wandering down that way. 

He was not disappointed when he entered the room. The ceilings were high and the windows let in light without making Nicholas fee as if he was baring himself to the general public. There was a window seat, closed in by curtains, in which Nicholas could imagine Peter sitting, happily. He did, in fact, look enamored of it already. 

Nicholas turned around, once; the room was large enough that they would not have to squeeze themselves between the bed and dresser, which he could not say of their current apartment - the complex was gated as well, which drastically reduced the likelihood of this apartment being broken into, though Nicholas was not naive enough to think that was a guarantee.

“This is… a great improvement,” Nicholas said, and Peter turned to him, smiling. 

“No buffalos,” he said. “No pink carpet.”

“No anything,” Nicholas said.

“So,” Sophie said - Nicholas had not even realized she had followed them into the bedroom, “would you like to talk to the complex manager?”

Nicholas looked around the bedroom, again, thinking of the rest of the apartment, and the other, utterly hideous apartments they had seen so far. Suddenly, Peter was beside him, taking his hand, tangling their fingers together, and smiling. Nicholas smiled back.

“Yes,” he said, “I think we would.”


End file.
